by Jonathan Turley, USATODAY

by Jonathan Turley, USATODAY

With the release of the recommendations of President Obama's review board on the NSA phone-record surveillance program, it is easy to feel like that Trojan looking down at a magnificent wooden horse outside the city gates and warning his fellow citizens to "beware of Greeks bearing gifts." The same can be said of federal task forces bearing "reforms."

On closer examination, the 46 recommendations of the task force are largely cosmetic and administrative changes that notably keep one thing: the program itself. Under the "reforms," the massive gathering of hundreds of millions of communications records by the National Security Agency could continue. Meanwhile, the administration is still hunting Edward Snowden, the government contractor responsible for disclosing these abuses.

In other words, we want reforms so long as we can punish the man who forced us into reforms.

Task force Tylenol

In Washington, task forces work like Tylenol: they reduce the symptoms of scandal while leaving the substance untouched. The task force was always expected to suggest changes, given both domestic criticism and the outcry from some of our closest allies. But the task force was also expected to assume that the president has inherent authority to legally capture records of calls and e-mails without a warrant.

That is a view not shared by a conservative judge this week in Washington. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon found that the surveillance program was flagrantly unconstitutional and questioned not just the legality but also the efficacy of the massive surveillance program.

"I cannot imagine a more 'indiscriminate' and 'arbitrary' invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of ... analyzing it without judicial approval," he wrote.

Leon correctly observed that the Framers would have been "aghast" by the evasion of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against warrantless searches and seizures.

It suggested that the NSA be placed under civilian control and that a key office be moved outside of the agency. It also recommended that the agencies tighten security clearances - presumably to avoid another Snowden.

That last proposal clearly resonates with the White House, which has worked hard to manage the scandal more than to reform the program. From the outset, the creation of the two task forces (one on surveillance and one on privacy) was met by skepticism by the civil liberties community.

Fox in the henhouse

On this task force, the president picked Michael Morell, a former CIA deputy director under Obama (who served during the alleged abuses); Richard Clarke, the Bush U.S. counterterrorism chief; Peter Swire, a former Obama economic and privacy official; Cass Sunstein, a former White House regulatory official who has publicly supported draconian national security measures; and Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor. While Stone and Swire were viewed as more protective of privacy, it was a board that seemed to guarantee incremental rather than sweeping changes.

This effort was further undermined when Obama ordered the involvement of his national intelligence chief John Clapper, who had just admitted publicly that he lied before Congress to conceal the scope of this very program. Of course, Clapper was never investigated, let alone prosecuted, for the crime of lying to Congress. Instead, Obama has called for the pursuit and punishment of Snowden, who disclosed the abuses Clapper lied about.

This week, former CIA director James Woolsey went as far as to call for Snowden to be "hanged by his neck until he is dead." Simultaneously offering reforms and the rope can send a curiously conflicted message.

A federal judge has now ruled that what the president was doing was unlawful. Congress and the White House now agree that abuses occurred and reforms are needed. Before the White House implements reforms to prevent the next Snowden, it is time to deal with the current one.

There is one concrete way for the president to demonstrate good faith in dealing with the reforms: Pardon Edward Snowden.

Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.